Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu formally ended attempts to form the next government om Tuesday (18 August) after weeks of coalition talks failed, raising the prospect of a fractious interim administration leading the country to a new election.

Davuto?lu had been trying to find a junior coalition partner since the AK Party lost its parliamentary majority in an election in June, leaving it unable to govern alone for the first time since it came to power in 2002.

Davuto?lu officially handed the mandate back to President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an at an evening meeting in the capital Ankara, Erdo?an’s office said in a statement.

AKP spokesman Besir Atalay said the party would hold a congress on 21 September. That meeting could be crucial for going into a fresh election.

NATO member and EU candidate Turkey has not seen this level of political uncertainty since the fragile coalition governments of the 1990s – turmoil it could do without as it takes on a frontline role in the U.S.-led campaign against Islamic State insurgents in Syria and battles Kurdish militants at home.

Davuto?lu met the leader of the right-wing opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) on Monday in a last-ditch effort to agree a working government, but the nationalist leader refused all the options he presented.

Erdo?an could theoretically now hand the mandate to form the next government to the Republican People’s Party (CHP), Turkey‘s second biggest, although it is also highly unlikely to be able to agree a working coalition before a 23 August deadline.

Under the terms of the constitution, if no government is formed by 23 August, Erdo?an must dissolve Davuto?lu’s caretaker cabinet and call on an interim power-sharing government to lead Turkey to a new election in the autumn.

Paralysis looms

Such a temporary arrangement would theoretically hand cabinet positions to four parties with deep ideological divisions, paralysing policy-making and deepening the instability that has sent the lira currency to a series of record lows.

But even forming such an interim “election cabinet” is likely to be difficult.

The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) said it would offer representatives to take part, but the nationalist MHP has made clear it would not countenance doing so.

Senior AKP officials had been betting that the nationalists, virulently opposed to greater Kurdish political power, would do anything possible to avoid a scenario in which the HDP held cabinet seats, and that they might support a short-lived minority AKP government in return for a new election.

But nationalist leader Devlet Bahceli has ruled that out, leaving an interim power-sharing cabinet as virtually the only option. He is apparently calculating that the prospect of Kurdish politicians in ministerial positions will so enrage those on Turkey’s political right that they will flock to support his party at the next election.

Parliament could in theory also vote to allow the current cabinet to continue working until a new election, but the MHP has already said it would vote against such a move and other opposition parties have little incentive to do any different.

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So Erdogan started a war against Kurds to try to dissent the Turkish people. Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, the old recepy.
This is an important test case, not just domestic but much more in a broader democratic sense. This will determine the possibility of an EU accession and the future of Turkey. Will it become a functioning democracy with freedom and rule of law or will it become (practically) a sharia cleric state?

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Tuy Cortrando

19/08/2015 12:22

Everything is rather fluid now. Any potential EU accession of Turkey shall not become a reality before 2030, IMHO. In 2030 Russia shall also join the EU, if the EU continues to still exist by then.

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YY

19/08/2015 12:29

EXACTLY my thought!

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Gerry

20/08/2015 03:48

Turkey having taken a front-line role in the fight against ISIS is a joke, it has done no such thing. Turkey should not be in NATO and should never be admitted to the EU. The EU should support the Kurds in their fight for independence and their struggle against IS, and dismiss the Turks for doing the opposite on both counts.